


Hollow

by LerxstInSpace



Series: Breaking and Entering [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Mentioned Tseng (Compilation of FFVII), Post-Sector 7 Plate Drop (Compilation of FFVII), Reeve is Just Done, Referenced super ugly breakup, Reno Has No Filter, Workaholic Reeve Tuesti
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:07:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29099310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LerxstInSpace/pseuds/LerxstInSpace
Summary: It’s not the first time Reno has showed up here looking like he’s been hit by a truck. It probably won’t be the last. But this time... this time, it’s different. There’s usually some bluster and bravado there, someyeah well you oughta see the other guybefore he makes a beeline for Reeve’s kitchen to steal his beer, as he does.Not this time. This time, he just stands there. He doesn’t look Reeve in the eyes. He looks... hollow. Like he’s been torn open and had everything that wasRenoscraped out of him with a dull rusty blade.Any other time, Reeve might feel a little sorry for him.
Relationships: Past Tseng/Reeve Tuesti, Reno & Reeve Tuesti, Reno/Rude (Compilation of FFVII)
Series: Breaking and Entering [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160927
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	Hollow

It’s four in the morning. Eight hours into an engineered catastrophe. Eight hours of nonstop live coverage on every channel that Reeve couldn’t stand to see or hear another second of but couldn’t tear himself away from.

Twenty minutes since he trudged in the door of his apartment on autopilot, thinking he should shower and change and maybe eat something before he went back to work and at least pretend he wasn’t skating the edge of a complete nervous breakdown. Eighteen minutes since Cait came in through the cat flap and gave him a few updates that weren’t as grim as they could have been but far more grim than they should have been. Sixteen minutes since Cait went back out the cat flap and headed back up to the roof to keep doing the only thing he could do.

Thirty seconds since the knock on his door.

It’s four in the morning and Midgar is burning and Reno is standing there outside Reeve’s door looking like he’s been hit by a truck.

It’s not the first time Reno has showed up here looking like he’s been hit by a truck. It probably won’t be the last. But this time... this time, it’s different. There’s usually some bluster and bravado there, some _yeah well you oughta see the other guy_ before he makes a beeline for Reeve’s kitchen to steal his beer, as he does.

Not this time. This time, he just stands there. He doesn’t look Reeve in the eyes. He looks... hollow. Like he’s been torn open and had everything that was _Reno_ scraped out of him with a dull rusty blade.

Any other time, Reeve might feel a little sorry for him.

This time, he doesn’t move, doesn’t clear a path between himself and his fridge. 

“What do you want?”

He tries to sound irritated, or angry, or anything other than just as hollowed-out as Reno looks.

Reno just gives him a little shrug and still doesn’t look him in the eyes. “To talk to someone who’s not gonna pat my ass and tell me what a great fuckin’ job I just did murdering what, fifty thousand people?”

All right. Okay. Now, maybe, Reeve might feel just a little sorry for him. He steps aside to let Reno in. Reno does not go straight for the fridge like he usually does. Instead he just sort of collapses onto the couch, head in his hands. 

Well... Reeve _is_ headed that way anyway, that’s where the coffee is, so... “You want a beer?”

“What do you think?” Reno snaps, though it’s clear his heart isn’t in it. “...yeah,” he sighs. “Please.”

Coffee isn’t quite ready. Enough time for Reeve to pop the cap off a beer and deliver it. Reno mumbles something that sounds vaguely grateful when he hands it over. 

“Where’s your cat?” he asks.

“Up on the roof,” Reeve replies. “Scanning for survivors. Anonymously calling locations in to the Watch. Where’s your partner?”

Another shrug. “Off processing his own shit in his own way and I respect that but...” Reno takes a long pull off his beer. “I gotta vent to _somebody_ or I’m going to lose it and who the fuck else is there? Heidegger? Your fuckin’ _ex--_ shit. Sorry. Just... y’know.”

“It’s fine,” Reeve deadpans.

It’s not fine, actually. 

It’s been five years. It shouldn’t hurt anymore. It’s been far too long for it to still hurt this much. It still hurts.

But that is the last rabbit hole he wants to fling himself down right now. So... he says it’s fine and hopes Reno takes it at face value. He usually does. Sometimes he doesn’t. 

Tonight, he does. “Heard a lot of people got out,” Reno says.

“That’s what Cait said. Not enough, though.”

“Not enough.” Another long drink. “Heard this weird mass text from a blocked number went out before shit went down. Like... a warning. Telling people to get out of Sector 7 right now. Lot of ‘em probably just ignored it but... some folks took it seriously, I guess. You know anything about that?”

“Nope.” Reeve turns away, heading for the kitchen to see to his coffee. “Don’t know a thing.” 

“Good answer,” Reno snorts into his beer. Then, something Reeve can’t quite make out, but might be: _good kitty._ “For what it’s worth, which I am _very much aware is basically fuckin’ zero..._ I couldn’t do it.”

Reeve comes back in with his coffee and sinks into his recliner and tries to, if not relax, at least take some of the weight of the day off. “What?”

“Push the button. I put the code in and then I just...” Reno shakes his head. “I choked. I could. Not. Fuckin’. Do it.” He hangs his head. “And then I got the shit kicked out of me and I _really_ couldn’t do it.” The way he kind of curls in on himself is so subtle Reeve barely notices, but anything that even looks like shame from Reno stands out like a flashing neon sign. “Rude--he didn’t want to either but... And now _he_ has to live with that, and I gotta live with knowing he shouldn’t have had to, and--” He bites his words off and shakes his head again. “This is bullshit, Reeve. All of this is just complete fuckin’ _bullshit._ We should have told Tseng to do it himself.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that would have gone well,” Reeve snorts, because he knows it would absolutely not have. He knows better than... well, maybe not _anyone,_ but most people, for sure. He’s reasonably sure he knows it better than most people who are still breathing.

They sit there in silence for a while, Reeve in his recliner with his coffee, Reno on the couch with his beer.

There was something Reeve had learned over the years he’d been letting random Turks hang out in his living room: Reno has no filter. None. Zero. No quality control between the brain and the mouth. The thoughts formed and went directly to the vocal cords and there was nothing you or God or anyone could do about it. You got used to it after a while, just learned to tune out the things you didn’t want to hear about.

And you learned, after a time, that when Reno is quiet it’s like the calm before a storm and you’d better brace for _something_. Reeve knows this all too well, and the list of things that might come out of Reno’s mouth next is very, very short and every item on it makes Reeve’s jaw clench.

“Look,” Reno finally says, and that one syllable hits like a wayward piece of foil in a baked potato. “I know you don’t like talking about him, but--”

Top of the list. God _dammit._ “Then don’t.”

“I just--I don’t know what to do anymore, y’know? He just--”

“Can we not? Can we please not.”

“Well, excuse the fuck outta me _,_ but maybe put some headphones on or something if you don’t want to hear it. I told you, _I gotta vent and I can’t trust anyone else with this_. He’s fuckin’ _lost it,_ Reeve. Off the deep end. How many years have we worked together and he’s--man, I don’t even know him anymore--”

There is so much Reeve could say to that. He knows how _that_ feels, doesn’t he? He knows what it feels like when someone he thought he knew does something unconscionable, but... Not like this. God, not _even_ like this.

At least, Reeve thinks bitterly, it was just _him_ that got thrown under that particular bus. 

At least that time, nobody died.

“He’s... look, you know I don’t scare easy, but the way he is now? Scares the _shit_ out of me. I mean, he’s _always_ been kinda lowkey scary, right, but this is like... on-duty scary. Twenty-four-fuckin’-seven. He can’t turn it off anymore. Not even when it’s just us. He’s--he’s like--he’s like a fuckin’ _robot,_ just doing whatever bullshit Heidegger tells him to--nah. Worse than a robot. Your damn _cat_ is easier to talk to than he is. He’s... he’s just _dead_ inside. I asked Rude the other day, like... ‘hey, you remember the last time Tseng did an off-duty house call with us? Or the last time you saw him laugh? Or even crack a genuine fuckin’ smile?’ and he couldn’t. And _I_ sure as hell couldn’t.”

Reeve doesn’t say anything to that. But he knows what Reno is talking about. He’s seen it. He saw it right here, in this room, on the couch Reno is sitting on right now. Not even twenty-four hours after the last time Reeve fell asleep in the man’s arms, he sat there on that couch with his suit and his gloves on, all cold and sharp and unyielding and so very much _on duty_ , and he didn’t even try to deny the accusation Reeve levelled at him. He couldn’t have, not in a way that would have stuck. The evidence against him was absolutely unmistakeable. But the token effort of a denial might have made the whole ugly situation a little easier to swallow.

“I mean,” Reno goes on, like he couldn’t stop talking now even if he wanted to, “when he pulled that shit with you I thought, like--’okay, well, that’s about as big a dick move as they come, he can’t go lower than that’ but he keeps--I figured there’d be a line _somewhere,_ y’know? There’d be this point where he’d man up and tell Heidegger to go get pegged by a Cactuar or some shit but--” Reno throws up his hands--or, at least, the one that doesn’t have a beer in it. “If _this_ isn’t the fuckin’ line, he--I don’t know if he even _has_ one anymore. I don’t know what to do. Part of me wants to stick by him, just in case he snaps to and he needs us to help him get out from under whatever the fuck his problem is, and part of me just wants to grab Rude and run as far the fuck away from Midgar as we can, but... shit, maybe _you_ could get through to him, I don’t--”

A spasm of laughter forces its way up out of Reeve’s chest, completely against his will, utterly devoid of anything even close to genuine humor. It’s like something deep inside him goes _okay, your choices are: 1) scream, 2), puke, or 3) laugh, you have 0.00000000001 seconds, choose only one._ “Are you _out of your goddamn mind!?”_ he splutters. “He actually gives a shit about you two, what the hell makes you think _I_ could reach him if you can’t!?”

“Yeah, that’s just it. He _did_ give a shit about you, he fuckin’ _loved_ you, which is why I still can’t figure out why the hell he--”

“No.” Reeve sits back in his chair and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes until he sees sparks. “No. _No._ Out of bounds. I can’t do this tonight. _Stop.”_

Reno stops. Thank fucking God, _he stops._

“Sorry,” he says after a long, uncomfortable silence. “I’m just... thinking out loud and shit. You know. Like I do.”

“Yeah.”

“God. Just... just between you and me and these four walls and this sofa and this beer I kinda wish Rufus would just fuckin’--”

There’s a knock on the door. Two taps. Soft, but with authority. And Reno shuts up. Straightens up. Just like that, he’s back on duty. “You expecting anyone?” he asks Reeve, eyeing the door. Reeve shakes his head _no._ “Sit tight.” He sets his beer on the coffee table. On a coaster, even. He stands up, goes into his pocket for his baton, flicks it open. He peers out the peephole...

...and just sort of deflates at whatever, at _who_ ever he sees. His baton goes back into his pocket, and he opens the door. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Rude starts to step through, seems to remember where he is and whose living room he’s about to walk into, and clears his throat softly.

“It’s fine,” Reeve says. He sort of means it. “Come in.”

Reno shuts the door, and Rude leans down and just sort of gently presses their foreheads together. “You okay?” he asks.

“Nope,” Reno replies. “You?”

Rude shakes his head. “Nuh uh.”

Reno wraps both arms around Rude’s waist and just _clings_ to him, and Rude clings back. From where Reeve is sitting, he can see Rude’s knuckles--wrapped with bandages he’s just starting to bleed through--and starts to get some idea what exactly Reno meant by _processing his own shit in his own way._

“Tseng wants to see us,” Rude says.

“Course he does.” Reno huffs out a sigh, and Rude ruffles his hair and lets him go. “Why wouldn’t he? It’s not like-- _what the hell did you do to yourself!?”_ Rude tries to deflect. Reno catches one of his wrapped hands. “What the fuck did you do? Throw hands with a goddamn _meat grinder?”_

“Heavy bag.”

“Okay? They make _gloves_ and shit for that? Lemme see.”

“Needed to feel it. C’mon, it’s not--”

“I said _let me see.”_

“Reno--” Of course Rude knows better than to try and argue. He knows better than anyone. So he just sighs and lets Reno take both of his hands. 

Reno shuts his eyes, takes a breath, and then there’s a whiff of Mako and a curl of green light around Rude’s bloody knuckles. When it fades, Reno peels the gauze back to check his handiwork. “There. Good as new.”

“You should have used that on yourself,” Rude scolds, but it’s clear his heart isn’t in it.

“Nah. I think I’m done, y’know, actively bleeding and shit.” He lets Rude go, takes the few steps back to the coffee table, picks up his beer, and drains it. “‘Kay. Let’s get this over with, I guess.” He stalks off to the kitchen to toss the bottle. 

Rude won’t look Reeve in the eyes either.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Reeve just nods, because he has nothing to say to that right now. He might find some words later. But right now it is too late and he is too exhausted and he hurts too much and everything is too much of everything and he just _can’t._

Reno comes out of the kitchen, and Rude lays a hand on the small of his back. “Thanks for the beer,” he says. Reeve doesn’t have anything to say to that either, so he just nods again. 

And then they’re gone, and he’s alone.

Just as well. He needs to get to work. Actually, he still needs that shower and change of clothes, but... well, he doesn’t _have_ to be back in the office for another three hours. That can wait.

He swaps his contacts out for his glasses. He knows he should probably eat something but his stomach isn’t quite on board with that right now. He knows he should probably try to take a quick power nap before he goes back in. He pours another cup of coffee instead.

They’ll rebuild. They have to. There needs to be a plan. He doesn’t know where the hell to start, but there needs to be a plan and he needs to have _something_ to show the President in time for the next board meeting. 

He opens up his laptop and tries to get to work. Tries to form some kind of coherent outline, at least. Tries not to think about Sector 6 and how long _that’s_ taken and how many times he’s been told _well of course it’s important that we rebuild but we just have more pressing matters to deal with this quarter, you understand, don’t you?_ Tries not to think about how there are always more pressing matters to deal with _every_ quarter. Tries not to think about how new construction has all but come to a complete standstill on the plate, never mind _under_ it.

Tries not to think about how much worse things are likely to get if even half the rumors he and Cait have overheard are true.

Tries not to think about Tseng, or how much he’s changed. 

Tries not to think about how much he, himself, has changed.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to those of y'all following me for the vee ell dee but I just finished the FF7 remake and my brain just threw a crate of 20 years worth of unwritten Tseng/Reeve stuff down from the attic at my feet so... yeah. There's going to be more of this. Mostly from earlier in the timeline, before everything went to shit.
> 
> I ...might be taking some liberties with the timeline. I know bits and pieces of the prequels but I figure if Cloud can literally punch the OG plot in the nose in the game, I can cherrypick the bits of prequel canon I like and yeet the rest out the window.


End file.
